Damn!
Chapter Twenty-two
She awoke to a rainy day, moody and gray, a good day for indoor activities. Her dream had unsettled her, and it stayed with her, as some dreams do, as the hours of the morning passed. She had a light breakfast at the pension and then walked to the Hofburg Palace to watch the horses’ training session. By a stroke of luck, just as she approached the palace, she had to stop and wait for a few minutes on the street. The horses were being walked, in single file from their stables across to their entrance into the riding school inside the palace. How often could one be so close to these magnificent animals, close enough, almost, to touch? They had the power, the elegance, and the confidence of champions, and it was exciting to stand there on the street, steps away from them as they passed by her. She felt her day brightening; she bought her ticket and climbed the stairs to the gallery where she could watch their regular morning practice from above.
As brilliant as the horses and their riders were, Marge was equally impressed by their training ground. It seemed to Marge both beautiful and yet strange, that the surface of soft brown earth on which these remarkable animals practiced and performed was inside a palatial hall of gold and gleaming white pillars, enormous French doors, and great crystal chandeliers, with two levels above of galleries for the visitors, and at one end of the hall, a towering painting of the Hapsburg Emperor, Carl VI, whose portrait was ritually saluted by the riders as they entered, each one raising his bicorne hat high as he rode past. Marge felt it was as though ten horses had come into the living room at home to perform among the chairs and the sofa and the coffee table. Yet they were so precisely trained, she knew that not a single bit of damage would—or could—be done by these perfect animals and their perfect riders.
Nor would Marge have been Marge if she hadn’t also been exquisitely aware of the details of the riders’ uniforms, in each detail a perfection of Empire style, from the double breasted, stiff-collared brown cutaway tail coats, their fronts cropped waist-high and with a row of six gold buttons on each side down the front, to their Napoleon-style bicorne hats with gold braid over a pleated black cockade. Black boots rising at the front above the knee over skin-tight creamy white buckskin breeches. Simple, swan neck spurs, and white deerskin gloves.
She tucked away a mental note to assign someone to do a piece in Lady Fair about the style of these riders. They were deliciously beautiful.
She watched riders and horses for about an hour, and was then ready to leave. She came out onto the Josephplatz. The rain had eased up into a misty curtain over the city and she found a coffee house where she could take advantage of the Viennese custom and sit undisturbed for hours to read her book. She ordered a knockwurst sandwich, which turned out to be baloney on a small, crusty, delicious semmel roll served with a small dish of mustard, and a large coffee with milk. No one interrupted her for hours and by four o’clock, she had finished her book. She knew there would be food later that evening at the heurige so she ordered only a second coffee and a small omelet which should be enough until Christiane picked her up at eight.
She came out into a bright, lively early evening scene. People were hurrying home from work, hurrying home for dinner, hurrying out to meet friends. The mist had cleared and the streets, still just a bit damp, reflected lights from the street lamps as well as from the moon which was just coming up over the Stephansdom. She walked back to the pension where, because the evening’s entertainment promised to go late, she decided to take a little nap. By the time Christiane’s driver had the concierge ring up to say they were ready for her, she’d slept a bit, wakened and washed up, dressed in a soft, cotton skirt she’d picked up at a stall in the Naschmarkt a couple of days earlier, a white peasant blouse and her denim jacket, and she was ready for an evening at a heurige.
She and Christiane must have progressed to the next level of friendship because, as she got into the back seat of the car, Christiane greeted her with the traditional air kiss, right cheeks touching first, then left. Christiane’s perfume was a blend Marge could not recognize, and she realized it was probably custom made. She sat back into the deep leather seat and prepared to enjoy the evening.
“I’ve decided,” Christine said, “we will not go to Grinzing. The world has discovered Grinzing and you would see only a tricked-out performance for tourists of what a heuriger evening used to be. Instead, I’ve told Otto,” she indicated the driver, “to take us back to Mauer. That is my neighborhood, and we will go to a genuine winery where I know the owner and you will have a more authentic and a more enjoyable heuriger experience. If nothing else, a heuriger evening should be fun. Not a forced imitation of what a tourist imagines it to be.”
It was a drive of about twenty minutes, and on the way Christiane gave her a bit of background about the winery’s owner, Martin Edlbau, who, she said, had been to school with her son and had inherited the winery when his father died. This was the first Marge had heard a word about Christiane’s personal life and soon they were sharing family stories. By the time they arrived at the Edlbau Weingut, a short distance up the hill from the Mauerhauptplatz, Marge and Christiane were on their way to becoming confidantes.
That would come, in fact, after a couple of hours in a traditionally gemütlich and rustic heurige setting, with wine groves rising in the hills around them and the lokal set at their base. The evening was too cool to stay outdoors where foliage formed a canopy over tables and chairs, unoccupied now. Inside, where the merriment was in progress, the long wood tables were rough-hewn, strangers sat and drank and sang together to lively fiddle and soulful zither music, with everyone joining in. There was also much eating of goulash and potatoes, and drinking of the new wine, which was excellent, and by eleven o’clock, when some folks started to leave and the place became a little quieter, Marge was just a bit buzzed. Not drunk, of course. Marge never got drunk. Christiane had assured her Otto would get her home safely, and she was happy, relaxed, and a little sentimental.
“I’ll be sorry to leave Vienna,” she said. “You’ve made this city such a pleasure and these have been good days. When I travel, it’s always for work and I never have time to look around and see more than the busy rush around me.”
Christiane looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. Then she said, “Marge, I have a confession to make. When I first met you, I said you looked familiar. I have said nothing since then, but now I must tell you, I have in fact realized who you are. Please forgive me that I said nothing, because I realized you didn’t want to be recognized.” She held up a hand because she saw the shadow that passed over Marge’s face. “Do not be disturbed. Even here in Vienna, we do see the international papers and magazines, and though you are usually in a more formal or public setting, your face is very familiar to any woman who pays attention to her appearance. No, no, do not be angry. I have so much enjoyed meeting you, and I would not want to make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not angry,” Marge said. “How could I be angry? You’ve been such a treat. I was just startled. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of hiding.” She laughed lightly. “As long as you don’t blow my cover. I trust you to keep my secret.”
“Of course. You have your reasons and it is none of my business.”
“Well, it’s really just that I’ve been working too hard and my doctor insisted on my taking a leave—just disappear and rest and recuperate. But if it’s reported in the media that Marge Webster hasn’t been feeling well, the stock market reacts. And we can’t have that, can we?”
“What a burden to carry on such young shoulders.”
“Oh, I’m used to it. I don’t mind. But I have to think of shareholders and the magazine’s staff, and et cetera. And you know, it really has been fun, in a way, this cloak and dagger stuff. I’ve been feeling sort of invisible, like a fly on the wall, just observing. Except there’s been one problem. Well, I don’t know if I should call it a problem. Exactly.”
“Yes?”
“Well,” she drank some more of the wine in her glass, “the thing is, I’ve been found out by someone else—”
“Someone besides me?”
“He knew me already. But he found out where I was and he spent some time with me, and—” She sighed. A big, satisfied sigh that spoke a great deal. “And actually, it was very nice. Really very nice. But I made him go away, because there is this other person—”
“Oh, my dear. Men do make such a mess of our lives, don’t they?”
“Yes, a mess. But also, they are so necessary. And sometimes, so nice.” She drank the rest of the wine in her glass and filled it again from the bottle on the table. And drank a bit more. “So I told him to go away, and we agreed that if I want him to come again, I would write to him and tell him.”
“And you want to write to him?”
“I want to write to both of them. I miss them both.”
“Oh, that is a problem.”
“Yes, it is. They’re both such good guys. But different. Very different.” She sipped a bit more of her wine. “I’ve been thinking of going to Paris. Do you think Paris would be a good place to make a decision? I have a friend who has a nice little pied à terre near the Rue Cler. She’s always said I can use it if ever I want to. Paris is such a beautiful city, and I’ve always wanted so much to just wander around and be lazy and sit at a sidewalk cafe and watch people go by and just walk and walk and walk and see it as ordinary folks do. But I spend so much time there, my face is known to many people. What do you think? I could wear a disguise. I could grow a mustache.”
Christiane laughed.
“No, really,” Marge said. “I could do something to hide my face. Or wear a wig. Cut my hair into bangs. Something.”
“My dear,” Christiane said, “Paris is a lovely, romantic place for managing affairs of the heart. But you are a little tipsy and the wine is guiding you. That’s not wise. But if I may, I will offer you one tiny bit of advice.”
Marge took a big, deep breath, willing herself to be not tipsy and to focus her attention. “I’m listening,” she said. “Seriously, Christiane. I am listening.”
Christiane laid a hand over Marge’s. “My dear, go to Paris if you like and enjoy your stay there, but when you make your choice, you must choose the man who makes you happy. It is that simple.”
Marge looked deep into Christiane’s bright gray eyes. Then she lifted her glass. “I will definitely drink to that.” She had a couple more sips, put down the glass, and said, “Now all I need to do is figure out which of the two makes me happier.”
Christiane laughed. “Oh, my dear. You are afflicted with a surfeit of good choices. So difficult.” She took a bit of bread, broke off a piece, buttered it, ate it, and said, “And if you do decide to go to Paris, please let me know where you’ll be. I would like so much to stay in touch.”
“Of course.”
“And now, because it is almost midnight, and I must get my beauty rest, I will have Otto drive me home first—it is a short way from here—and then he will take you back to Vienna.”
She settled up the bill, Marge thanked her for a wonderful evening and for excellent advice, Christiane texted Otto to tell him to bring the car around, and soon they were pulling up to the tall iron gate at Christiane’s villa. Otto waited until she’d gotten herself inside and locked the gate behind her, and then he took Marge back into town.
* * * *
And while Otto was driving Marge back into town, Christiane took a moment to text to Sam:
She is going to Paris. Some little place near the Rue Cler. Will let you know when and exactly where.
I think your chances are good.
She likes you.
Bless you, Christiane. She’s wonderful, isn’t she?
Yes, dear. I like her very much.
Chapter Twenty-three
She woke up laughing. Every now and then, her dreams told her a joke, and this one was a doozy. There was this enormous open field. Very green and very bright and summery, with mountains in the distance and fluffy white clouds up above in a blue, blue sky. A very happy scene. And the white horses were there, a whole herd of gorgeous Lipizzaners, and they were running every which way, tails flying, manes tossing. And, believe it or not, they were laughing. Big, whinnying horse-laughs. And the reason they were laughing was that Jerry and Sam were also there in the dream, both of them, and they were running after the horses, trying to catch them, but the horses were much too clever and much too fast to be caught. They twisted this way and that, pretending to be almost caught and then with a quick side-step and a leap, they’d be off again, still elusive. And the funniest thing about it was that both men were in very proper business suits—white dress shirts, ties, Jerry in his best blue pinstripe and Sam in charcoal grey—both of them running wildly and both of them very red in the face.
“It must have been the wine,” she said to the mirror as she brushed her teeth. “I put away almost half a bottle all by myself.”
But she didn’t feel at all fuzzy. Not at all. She felt perfectly clear and in a very good mood. A quick shower, and two minutes to get into a tee shirt, jeans, Top-Siders, and her denim jacket. She pulled her hair up into a pony tail, twisted it around, and secured it into a scraggly knot with a tortoise shell hair stick. A dash of lipstick, and she was ready to go. And all the while, thinking about last night. About Christiane’s advice.
“Can it really be that simple? Is it just a matter of who makes me happy?”
She went down to the dining room, a small room just off the lobby, where breakfast was still being served. She ordered a soft boiled egg which was served in an egg cup. The egg was wearing an embroidered little cap to keep it warm and that little cap added to Marge’s happy mood. It was such a pretty little thing, with peasant figures dancing around it. She made a mental note to find out where she could buy some. There were also butter curls on her bread plate along with a couple of kipferl. The coffee was in a silver pot and a small pitcher of boiled milk came with it. She felt well-cared-for.
And it was in that mood that she finished her breakfast and left the dining room, eager for the day. She stopped at the concierge’s desk to ask about the egg cup cozies.
The concierge took a tourist map from a drawer and with a pen, marked a place on the map. “We buy ours from a commercial hotel supply firm, but you should be able to find some very nice ones here,” as she pointed with her pen. “Here, near Am Hof, where the Tuchlauben and the Bognergasse meet. There’s a linen shop on the corner. I’m sure you can find something lovely there.”
But she decided to put off shopping at the linen shop till later in the day. Egg cozies could wait. The day was too pretty to be anywhere but in the open air. The Stadtpark was only a short walk from the pension, and when she got there, she went looking for a good place to sit and think. Think about what she would be doing next. Think about what Christiane had said to her. She stopped wandering around the park when she found an inviting bench facing a playground. She took a notebook and pen out of her bag, opened it up, turned to the next blank page, and drew a line down the center. At the top of the column on the left, she wrote, in big black letters:
JERRY
And of course, in the right-hand column, she wrote:
SAM
Then she divided each column into subcolumns, “pro” and “con.”
And at the bottom of each, she wrote, “Makes me happy?”
And then she stared at the page for a long time without writing anything.
She was distracted by the children.
By the sound of their playing, their laughter and shrieks and calls to each other. By the mothers and nannies and, presumably, grandmas, telling them to be careful, to watch out, “Don’t climb so high,” “Play nicely,” “Come here, you need to blow your nose,” “Stop fighting.” At least, that’s what she guessed
they were saying. Even in German, she was sure they must be saying, “Yes, I was watching, I saw what you did.” And the universal “Good job!”
The children held her attention. She was charmed by their liveliness, by their innocence, by their nimbleness. They were incredibly darling, in their little jeans and tiny tee shirts and Nike sneakers. And she had to laugh at herself, because she found it remarkable that they could chatter in fluent, melodious, bird-like German—so young and they already know German—as though it was a marvel that they spoke a foreign language. Which was silly, of course, and she knew it was silly, but that’s what passed through her head.
For a long time, she watched them, pretended she could figure out everything about them, the personalities of each, how each would grow up, just from the way they played. One little girl in a sandbox was working hard to help a younger child fill up a pail. Another was slapping the hand of a little boy, preventing him from taking her toy from her. One fearless little girl was hanging upside down from a large, complicated, jungle gym sort of structure. Two boys were tussling and a third, an older one, made them break it up, made them shake hands and get back to their game.
Funny, how little boys learn early to shake and get over it. Girls hold grudges to the death. A girl will say, “I hate her guts and I’ll never talk to her again.”
It reminded her of what she’d said to Bridey—was it only a few weeks back? How long ago that seemed, back in September and an ocean and a continent away.
Whatever it is the boys are experiencing here in the playground, they always want to come back to it. And the girls, not so much.
Who Would You Choose? Page 16